Call me now

As a matter of disguised showing off, I’m now going to write a blog about my new phone – the Blackberry Storm.

Nah, what a waste of time. Let’s talk about my incompetent inertia to new technology instead.

Friday afternoon I picked up my Blackberry and happily fiddled with it briefly at the office. But as a hard-working employee, I didn’t get to spend too much time on it, before I rushed off to my Friday night talk. Needless to say, I had no idea how to use the gadget properly. Phone Karma must’ve been against me, as I got a million calls and SMS’s that night. I apologise to those who I hung up on and those who received SMS’s that made little sense. Not to mention those who had similar conversations as follows:

“Hey, it’s me.”

“Who’s this?”

“Hahaha…Don’t be silly. It’s me.”

“I’m sorry but I just got a new phone and so I don’t know who you are so can you please tell me who you are!”

“…It’s your mother…”

Ok I made the bit about mum up, but otherwise, at least six callers got the initial convo.

Then when people SMS’d me and I wanted to call them back (because there was no way I was typing on this thing!) I had to ask the blondest question, “How do I call this guy on my phone?” To which the answer was, “You select the phone number, and then you press the green “call” button”. Oh, what a genius! (Special thanks to SY the Blackberry Queen, even tho she’s an IphoneChick.)

Over dinner, I was trying so hard to work out my phone, I didn’t have time to order food for everyone, and was universally blamed for the delayed delivery of supper. Why didn’t everyone else order as well? Not sure. Maybe they were too amused at me struggling with a 8 x 5cm object. Thankfully CH took care of the ordering for us.

By the end of the night, I was so upset at the Blackberry, I declared how I hated it, had impulses to rush back to the shops and return it (too bad they were closed), and most importantly, I gave my ultimte silent treatment (first sign of sanity really).

Saturday – I spent a good few hours of my weekend mastering this 8 x 5cm object and I am happy to say I am now Blackbelt in Blackberry. It does what I tell it to do, when I tell it to, and doesn’t talk back. (Girlfriends have told me that’s how they’ve trained their man too.)

So what have I learnt from this episode? To master something, no matter how small or big, be patient, concentrate, ask silly questions, and memorise your mum’s phone number!

My first Chinese poem

The dedicated blog reader would’ve read a good dozen of my poems by now. Another poem in English would be no big deal. But what if it was in Chinese?

I was sorting through some old tid bits from my uni days, and came across a small slip of paper with some scrawny Chinese characters scribbled across it. I’d forgotten I’d written this. It brings back memories. I remember I wrote it when I was still studying my BA at UNSW, which would be about 7 years ago. Think it was the semester I did ENGL: Creative Writing and HIST: China. That would explain my over-ambitious attempt at Chinese poetry.

Well, without further ado, I present to you my first (and possibly last) poem in Chinese:

Now for the Chinese reader, I invite you to provide your interpretation and critical evaluation of this poem and the literary techinques used. It’ll be interesting to hear what other’s think this poem means, and less importantly, to convince me to never write another Chinese poem again!

P.S: As an Aussiefield Chinese, the poem reads from left-down to right, not the traditional right-down to left. Tsk tsk.

Meditation by the Water

Last Saturday, I led a short meditation overlooking a peaceful stream in the Royal National Park. Thought I’d share a piece of the tranquility with you.

Breathe in, relax. Breathe out, relax.

Open yourself fully to the world around you, embrace the stillness of nature, and be present to this very moment.

Reflect on the calmness of the world beyond you, the sounds of nature, and the silent harmony that pervades the depths of the air you breathe in and out.

Now listen to the world that exists within you. Hear the clattering of your mind, the ceaseless talking to ourselves. See the patterns and habits of the mind – planning, scheming, calculating, judging, comparing, worrying, daydreaming. Note when it flies into the past of memories, reliving them again and again like an addiction to thought. Note when it chases after the future, trying to control time by planning and hoping.

But allow yourself to let all that thinking go, just for a moment. Reassure yourself, that even if you stop thinking for just a few moments, it’ll be ok. Give yourself permission to enjoy this moment, without calculating what you could be doing instead. Encourage yourself that you deserve this time out from the hectic life you lead, and the frantic thinking you are so accustomed to.

When the busyness of life becomes our norm, we forget the importance of stopping. We only know of going. Busyness becomes our life’s structure, and an excuse to be selfish. Busyness changes our priorities where worldly goals come before spiritual ones. Busyness makes us forget, that busyness is not a reality, but an attitude and way of life we have chosen to adopt. Sitting here, you get to choose again. At this moment, can you see this mentality of busyness? Will you choose to take it? Or will you choose to leave it?

Meditation is often neglected as last in our list of priorities. But it is when we are busiest, that meditation is most important to keep our stresses down and our energies high. I would encourage you all to practice meditation, to see the value of this practice, rather than a chore. And I hope this practice will continue, long after this session ends.

So let’s sit in quiet meditation for 10 minutes, so you can truly practice in your own way, whether it’s by focussing on your breath, on the water before you, or spreading metta to all living beings. Please adjust your sitting posture and find your inner peace.

Nagging Part 2

That’s right. The nagging continues.

It happened near the end of my family dinner. My dad and brothers had left the table (good move), and I was left with mum.

“Don’t forget you need to do XYZ tomorrow, and buy of ABC, and … CDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVW…”

“Yes mum”

“Don’t forget you need to go [here] and [there] with me on Saturday.”

“Mum…”

“And don’t forget…”

“Mum, you’re nagging again.”

… quiet …

I was expecting her to nag on about how she doesn’t nag, so I wasn’t expecting what she said next.

“You know Tina, there’s lots of kids who complain about their mums nagging, but when their mum’s aren’t here anymore, a lot of them say how much they miss their mum’s nagging.”

“That’s so true mum. I love you.”

Nah, that’s not what I said. I should’ve, would’ve been nice, but instead I said, “Yea right, ain’t gonna happen to me, mum. I will miss you, whether you nag or not. So that’s no excuse to nag!”

Being mum, she of course has the last word: “I may tell you to do this and do that, but that’s only because I care. Look at your dad. He doesn’t nag. But He doesn’t care either whether you have enough to eat, whether you come home at night alright – he sleeps soundly regardless – whether you have your life in order.”

Funny how mum managed to equate CARE = NAG. NO NAG = NO CARE.

Anyways, that night I received an email attachment entitled “Mean Mums”. How appropriate, I thought.

It happened to be a poor attempt at constructing a poem, but quite fitting to my circumstances nonetheless. It read:

~ M E A N   M U M S ~

Someday when my children are old enough to understand the logic that motivates a parent,

I will tell them, as my Mean Mum told me:

I loved you enough…to ask where you were going, with whom, and what time you would be home.

I loved you enough to let you assume the responsibility for your actions even when the penalties were harsh they almost broke my heart.

But most of all, I loved you enough…to say NO when I knew you would hate me for it.

Was your Mum mean? I know mine was.

While other kids ate candy for breakfast, we had to have cereal, eggs and toast.

When others had a Pepsi and Twisties for lunch,we had to eat sandwiches.

Mother insisted on knowing where we were at all times, who our friends were, and what we were doing with them.

We were ashamed to admit it, but she had the nerve to break the Child Labour Laws by making us work.

We had to wash the dishes, make the beds, learn to cook, vacuum the floor, do laundry, empty the trash and all sorts of cruel jobs. I think she would lie awake at night thinking of more things for us to do.

She always insisted on us telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. By the time we were teenages, she could read our minds, and had eyes in the back of her head. Back then, life was really tough!

While everyone else could date when they were 12 or 13, we had to wait until we were 16. [Yeah right]

Because of our mother, we missed out on lots of things other kids experienced. None of us have ever been caught shoplifting, vandalising other’s property or even arrested for any crime. It was all her fault.

Now that we have left home, we are all educated, honest adults. We are doing our best to be mean parents just like Mum was. Perhaps that’s what’s wrong with the world today. It just doesn’t have enough mean mums!

To think all this time we thought world peace was to be achieved though ending conflict and spreading compassion, when really it was just we needed more meaner mums! Don’t tell my mum that, otherwise she’ll tell me her nagging is going to get her the Noble Peace Prize!

Weightlessness

Hi, my name is Tina and I weight 45 kilo. No I’m not anorexic, yes I am serious.

It’s unbelievable the amount of time I have spent listening to my friends telling me about their weight ‘problem’. One of the most FAQ is, “Do you think I’ve put on weight?” It’s one of those tricky questions that really is just a disguised rhetorical question. I’ve always had an urge to reply with, “Now that you mention it, yes that ball of lard is growing. Pass the chips thanks.” Truth of the matter is, I don’t notice people’s weight. And when confronted with these questions, I feel that perhaps I should start taking notice. When I reply, “I haven’t noticed,” the retort I get back is, “Oh you’re just being kind.” In fact, I’m just more interested to know about what’s going in their lives rather than in their hips. Maybe it’s just me.

So when a group of girlfriends sit around discussing about their weight, I usually keep quiet. Now that I’ve gone from 48 to 45, I feel justified in joining in their whinging about weight. “I’ve lost another dress size! Do you think I look too slim in this dress? Oh bother!” I never say it of course. It’ll be a fine example of social suicide though, if I ever do.

Thing is, most people consider weight an issue when there’s too much of it. No sympathies for their skinner counterparts, even if that skinniness is a manifestation of some underlying problem, such as trouble eating from stress or poor eating habits.

All this has made me become more conscious of how much attention we have started placing on our figures. The size of our dress is somehow equated to the size of our beauty, and the measurement of our body a measure of our health. But every body is unique in size and structure. Some people look good thin and others need a bit of meat on them.

Beauty magazines often promote healthy bodies and have articles encouraging its readers to love their body no matter its size and shape…in between glamour shots of stick women, of course. So as I write this to encourage readers to love your body, no matter its size and shape, I feel like I’m repeating a hypocritical cliche.

Yet truly, outer beauty is nothing compared with inner beauty. Have you seen an old woman smile with a sparkle in her eyes? Have you seen a model frown and scowl? Which is pretty, and which is truly beauty?

Another cliche – beauty is in the beholder (or where appropriate, the beer-holder). How many ‘pretty’ women are single, and how many ‘ugly’ women are happily hitched?

So the secret to true beauty – happiness. When we’re happy, smiling and carefree, that is the greatest source of attraction because that’s exactly what others are looking for. When we are stressed, angry, and depressed, people don’t want to be anywhere near us. When we’re looking fit and healthy, that is a source of beauty because it shows we care about our bodies, and so we have the potential to care for others. Other people have told me it also gives off a signal that we’re good to procreate. I’ll let you take that however you like.

Perhaps the best size isn’t 6 or 16. Ultimately we shouldn’t be aiming for weight-loss or weight-gain. Rather we should aim for weightlessness – an unburdened mind, an uplifted spirit, a forever smile that defies the law of gravity and human cynicism. A contentment for who we are because this is it, so why not love it?

Nagging

Like most people my age, when I think of nagging I think of my mum (sorry mum). For most partnered men, it would be their girlfriends or wives. All in all, it’s safe to say that most people associate nagging with women.

 

I’d like to think I don’t nag. I do stand to be corrected, however, because I have noticed that often naggers don’t realise they’re nagging. Mum surely doesn’t see herself as a nagger.

 

“I’m not nagging. I just don’t want you to forget.” It’s difficult to forget anything that I’ve heard 6 times…within the space of 3 minutes, beginning when I stepped into my house.

“I’m not nagging. I just want to make sure you got what I’m saying.” Actually, what that means is she wants to make sure I do what she says. I think she also genuinely believes that if I hear it enough, it will become true by default.

“I’m not nagging. I just want to remind you so you don’t do what you did last time.” 7 years ago. And it was my brother (really).

“I’m not nagging. I only said it yesterday. Didn’t say it today.” Kill me now.

 

Despite how nagging makes my skin crawl, I’m interested to get to the bottom of this. I’m opening the floor up to anyone who can tell me why people nag, and what medication we have for these people.

 

The best explanation I’ve come up with is naggers are anxiety-strung control-freaks. Their method of providing security for themselves is by creating a controllable world around them, and this of course means needing to control the most uncontrollable factor of all – people. Unfortunately, they do this by telling people what to do, and expect it to be done according to how they see it to be done, which is often NOW. So when things don’t get done, or don’t get done according to how they like it, then they feel the need to share their disapproval with us (whether we want to hear it or not).

 

Fortunately for me, but unfortunately for mum, I have naturally developed a Darwinistic survival trait whereby any recurring nagging is automatically and conveniently received as unregistered soundwaves, and remained that way. It has saved a lot of my valuable memory space. I just hope my brain doesn’t copycat what it receives and starts nagging at me.

 

I’d also like to know why nagging is feminised, and why blokes don’t nag as often. Must look into that for the sake of my female counterparts, but also so I don’t turn into one (Imagine what this blog would be like! Shivers*). Perhaps I already have – I’m nagging about nagging!

A Real Holiday

The state of my blog is often a true opposite of the state of my life. If it’s desolate of updates as it currently stands, it means I’m as busy as a runaway turkey at Christmas. If it’s filled with a series of amazing entries, the turkey’s either happily escaped (I’m retired) or caught (I’m fired).

But thanks to the persistent encouragement (read: nagging) of my fans (read: bored bloggers), I’m back! And what better topic to write about than…holidays.

It’s definitely a sign of the times when a common phrase heard (often in the form of an exasperated and tired declaration) is “I need a holiday” (swearing optional). Note “need”, not “want”.

Now when we say we need a holiday, I would say about 70% of the time nothing eventuates. Why? Firstly because organising a holiday itself requires another holiday to de-stress ourselves from all the stress of planning that holiday. To exemplify: you need to get leave from work, pass your responsibility onto some other sucker, find a suitable sucker so you don’t return to chaos (or asked to never return at all), and you may need to do some sucking up to the sucker. Then there’s finding a place to go, place to stay, place to visit, place with things to do, and place to take you to that place (e.g., Flight Centre or Uncle Chow’s boat escapes). Then you need to find a travelling buddy who is just as crazy as you are to take a month’s leave in the middle of March for some “me” time.

Then of course there’s the cost. Cost for travelling, accommodation, food, Uncle Chow, souvenirs for your colleagues (read: bribe to sucker) and any significant others that you’ve left behind to pay your mortgage while you’ve been away (lucky you). Not to mention the opportunity cost of the money you could be making while you sip coconut juice in Phuket watching the clouds form irrelevant patterns in the sky.

Then for the 30% who do finally end up going, 11% return with smiles of contentment on their faces (10% of whom the smiles lasts for 3 days or until they return to work), 7% return pissed off at their partner, 4% return pissed off at their screaming kids, 3% return pissed off at customs and/or airport security, 1% return pissed off at Channel 9 because they didn’t get on Customs, and 4% return pissed off for no particular reason except it makes for a better story to have something to whinge about (especially to the sucker colleague or left-behind significant other – “You didn’t miss anything darling”).

Yet the real reason why holidays can be such hard work is because although we may be physically on holidays, mentally we aren’t. Our eyes might see the amazing views, our ears might hear the symphonies of nature, our nose may smell the fragrance of the fields, our mouth may taste the sweetness of spring, and our bodies may be embraced by the gentleness of the world…and yet, our mind is still trapped in the busyness of thought. We may be in a different time zone, different area code, speaking in different languages, and yet, our mind is still trapped in its usual thought patterns of planning, worrying, stressing, controlling, criticising, scheming, calculating, daydreaming, etc. The mind is still preoccupied with its past memories or future plans, without really appreciating the entirety of the world before it.

Now here’s the good news. Just as our body can be on holidays, while our spirit is imprisoned, the opposite is also true – even if we can’t physically be holidaying, our spirit can still be free. Take short weekend trips to a place you’ve never been before to expand your horizons. Make short visits with people you haven’t met in some time to remind them you still care. Most importantly, take short moments throughout your day to just stop and return. Stop the busyness of what you’re doing, but also what you’re thinking. Return to the quietness of your soul, the stillness of your mind, and affirm your intention in whatever you’re pursuing. Even if you can only do this just for a minute, that minute has the potential of giving you more peace than a thousand minutes of mad holidaying. What’s more, you will have the same smile of contentment as the 1% who return with a smile forever painted on their faces!